October HORROR-ween......What's on your reading TBR?

[Dr. Drib]

Yessssss, it's almost that time of month....coming soon to an ereader near you!

OK: So what's going to be (or already is) on your reading list for the month of October? Why is it on your reading list?

Or perhaps you have recommendations - BECAUSE YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE BOOK!

Is it spooky? Does it involve a hacksaw? (I find the sound so comforting.)

Did someone force you to wear shoes full of tiny thumb tacs?

Or is about one of the innumerable horrors that reside inside the mind of woman and man, the kind that therapy fails to remove? (Those are the worst kind of horrors! And we know who you are!)

Perhaps you got your wish: Suffocated in a swimming pool full of vanilla ice cream! A corpse with a smile on her face. How enlightening!

I can guarantee this: You WILL live, as long as you DON'T leave your bed. Oh, I forgot to mention that the bed is full of ants, rats, roaches, and snakes. And tarantulas. And they all like to scurry, crawl and scamper.

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Shatter, mutilate,
Then kill them all!

[Scoob]

Not on my list as I read them already but Summer of the Beast by Michael Burns and Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell are gory and creepy respectively.

Summer of the Beast is a story of military medical experiments run amok and the fall out when things inevitably escape. Two local homicide detectives are then dealing with a violent serial killer. It's a two part series and the second book can be read as a standalone but isn't very satisfying.

Stolen Tongues is good creepy story of a seemingly ordinary cabin and a romantic get away weekend gone wrong. Our happy couple enters the cabin and the weirdness begins. Cries of people and screams of animals. Whispers on the edge of being just loud enough to make out. And a dark shadow coming closer and closer to the cabin. I really enjoyed this one and it has a part two also but haven't read that one yet.

An honorable mention for an October read is Tales from the Gas Station by Jack Townsend. It's a 4ish part series thats full of everything you could want. A suicide murder cult living in the woods. The hand plants and all those creepy gnomes. A energy vortex below the workplace. Mutated raccoons mysterious people and great friends. You'll find that and more at the Gas Station. Honestly it's like Gravity Falls/Scooby-doo but for adults. It's not a scary series but it's a fun series.

[Dazrin]

I don't follow a theme of what to read when, but I'm currently reading The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. I wouldn't call it horror, horror adjacent though. Time travel, fantasy, dark gods, werewolves. Not quite like anything I've read before and I'm enjoying it.

I also started Devolution by Max Brooks as an audiobook yesterday. "A firsthand account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre"

And I've had House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski on my list for a long time. The way it was described to me is that it is to horror as hard science fiction is to science fiction as a whole.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I don't follow a theme of what to read when,

Neither do I, but I recently finished "A sorceress comes to call" by T.Kingfisher, which is pretty dark, and very, very good. Her "A house with good bones" was also really good, with horror that starts with small, everyday things being wrong (why has Mom painted the house beige? She always loved strong colours!) and escalating slowly. I've liked her fantasy, and am planning to check out more of her horror.

I've also been thinking of reading Alyssa Cole's "When noone is watching", a thriller about gentrification. Her "One of us knows" has that mix of everyday and supernatural horror that I like. The protagonist is a person with multiple personalities. The main personality has been dormant for several years, and wakes up in 2020, standing on a pier, about to start a job on a remote island that none of the personalities remember applying for. And why does she carry several surgical masks in her pockets?

[Scoob]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I also started Devolution by Max Brooks as an audiobook yesterday. "A firsthand account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre"

That's a good read and I'm sure a good listen Not too many mainstream authors would do a story about Bigfoot and Brooks hits a homerun. It will leave you wanting more.

[Dr. Drib]

I decided to go with Disappearance at Devil's Rock: A Novel, by Paul Tremblay, for my Halloween read.

Looks pretty interesting.

I'll probably add one or two more other titles for a nice Halloween mix.

[Pajamaman]

Im not a horror fan. Horrible things happen. They die.

That said, The End of the End of Everything by Dale Bailey is great. And his novella The Ghoul goes West is a Boris Karlof tale I enjoyed.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Im not a horror fan. Horrible things happen. They die.

That said, The End of the End of Everything by Dale Bailey is great. And his novella The Ghoul goes West is a Boris Karlof tale I enjoyed.

Thanks. I'll check out those two titles. I've read a lot of novellas this year, so I'm very open to almost any horror (and literary) novella.